Design Thinking Process Resources And Instructions

Design Thinking Process Resources And Instructionsscenarioyou Work For

Scenario You work for N&M Consulting as a product manager. In your role, you take on client projects and determine innovative and efficient ways to meet the clients’ needs. Your supervisor, Chantal Sharpe, has asked you to create a project proposal that uses the design thinking process to develop consumer-focused solutions that deliver a value proposition to the client.

Company Overview N&M Consulting is a large consulting firm known for its innovative solutions to complex problems that apply design thinking. Clients value the innovative, consumer-focused solutions that the consulting firm provides. While the firm serves all businesses, it is best known for its work in supporting local, national, and international companies to reimagine their businesses.

Company Vision: To be the industry leader in providing innovative, consumer-focused solutions that deliver incremental value and superior results for their clients’ businesses.

Projects Chantal has provided you with a couple of potential projects for your next assignment. You choose one of these projects to develop your project proposal. Each company profile contains information about the company, its project, and its consumers.

N&M Consulting attributes its success to keeping unmet customer needs at the core of its design thinking process.

Sunny Value Park (Nonprofit) You have been hired by Sunny Valley Park to make recommendations for ways to increase the value of the park. The park is located on a large lake. It currently has campgrounds, a beach, canoe rentals, a small playground, and a picnic area.

The lake is a popular summer tourist destination, and the town also has a sizable local population whose patronage adds value to the park. Currently, the park generates revenue from overnight campsite rentals and fees for day visitors of the park. The owner of the park, Bill Watson, is seeking a proposal that uses design thinking to increase the value of his business and attract more visitors, especially young adults and families.

Needs Assessment: Your marketing team has conducted a needs assessment that includes information about the primary audience and its needs.

Target Audience

  • Young families with children ages 1–5
  • Young professionals (with or without children), ages 18–29

Top needs and opportunities based on survey data

  • Activities that appeal to young adults, including sports, events, general leisure, and learning opportunities
  • Features that cultivate a social experience

Super Shop (For-profit) The Super Shop, a small local grocery store, has hired you to create a proposal for updating the store to add value to attract more customers and retain its existing customers.

A couple of larger grocery store chains have opened in the area, and the Super Shop is struggling to keep up with the competition. The store sells a lot of similar items. It also offers a deli and a bakery. Competing stores offer grocery pick-up, and they have a wider selection of goods in specific areas. The owner feels as though The Super Shop is lacking a specialty, and he thinks that offering something unique will help his store stand out more.

The store is located in an ethnically diverse neighborhood with office buildings nearby as well as condos and single-family homes.

Needs Assessment: Your marketing team has conducted a needs assessment that includes information about the primary audience and its needs.

Target Audience

  • Professionals (with or without families) who work nearby
  • Stay-at-home parents

Top needs and opportunities based on survey data

  • Convenience options, potentially including prepared meals and quick service
  • Reasonable prices and frequent promotions
  • Fresh and organic fruits and vegetables

Directions

N&M Consulting prides itself on innovative, out-of-the-box thinking to help its clients solve unmet needs. The company uses a design thinking-based proposal to ensure that all projects have this vision from the start.

· Empathize: Using the provided needs assessment for the client you choose, determine the consumers’ needs by empathizing with their situation. Include the following in your response:

  • Understand and identify the specific human needs that the proposed solution should address, using empathy to make inferences that will shape the solution.
  • How did you determine the target audience’s unmet needs?

· Define: Reframe the problem in a human-centric way and detail specific issues impacting consumers. Include:

  • How addressing this problem better serves the consumer and delivers a value proposition for the business.

· Ideate: Create several possible consumer-focused solutions based on consumer needs. Include:

  • What specific consumer needs are addressed in your proposed solutions?
  • How will these ideas address unmet needs?
  • Discuss how the value proposition applies to business strategies.

· Prototype: Explain how the design thinking process supports prototyping human-centered solutions. Include:

  • Your vision for adapting proposed solutions, detailing how design thinking influenced your prototype.
  • The use of design thinking at each stage in the proposed solution.

· Test: Devise strategies to test proposed solutions for informed stakeholder feedback. Include:

  • The data that could be obtained to determine solution success and how it would be gathered.
  • How testing can help apply lessons learned if the solution isn’t working well.

What to Submit

Develop a project proposal that outlines consumer-focused solutions from a design thinking perspective, 2–4 pages in length. Use the provided resources for citing sources correctly and avoid plagiarism.

References

  • Read Chapter 7 (The Three Challenges of Frame Innovation) in "Frame Innovation: Create New Thinking by Design" for insights into the challenges of implementing design thinking in organizations.
  • Participate in learning modules about understanding user needs, defining problems, and prototyping solutions, including videos and readings.
  • Utilize credible academic journals and industry reports on design thinking in business for references.
  • Follow APA citation standards for referencing all sources used in your project.
  • Explore additional resources on design thinking for innovative business solutions, including articles by Brown (2009), Liedtka (2018), and others.
  • Apply user-centered design principles outlined by IDEO and other key organizations.
  • Use recent case studies illustrating successful implementation of design thinking in business contexts.
  • Learn about common organizational challenges in adopting design thinking, including resistance to change and resource constraints.
  • Refer to online databases such as Google Scholar and JSTOR for scholarly articles.

References

  • Brown, T. (2009). Change by Design: How Design Thinking Creates New Alternatives for Business and Society. HarperBusiness.
  • Liedtka, J. (2018). Why Design Thinking Works. Harvard Business Review, 96(5), 72–79.
  • Heuer, J. (2018). Applying Design Thinking to Business Innovation. Journal of Business Strategy, 39(4), 42–50.
  • Mattelart, B. (2019). Organizational Challenges to Implementing Design Thinking. Management Science, 65(7), 3150–3164.
  • IDEO. (2015). The Field Guide to Human-Centered Design. IDEO.org.
  • Shapiro, S., & Nelson, R. (2020). Overcoming Resistance to Innovation Through Design Thinking. Innovation Management Review, 17(2), 9–17.
  • Martin, R. (2009). The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking Is the Next Competitive Advantage. Harvard Business Press.
  • Sloane, P. (2017). Empathy and Creativity in Business Innovation. Creativity and Innovation Management, 26(4), 394–403.
  • Kolko, J. (2015). Well-Designed: How to Use Empathy to Create Products People Love. O'Reilly Media.
  • Garrett, J. J. (2010). The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web and Beyond. New Riders.

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